Me After You
by shouldbstudying
Summary: Louisa can't seem to cry after Will's death. Watching his body be wheeled away, his funeral, packing up his room. Nothing could make her cry for her lost love. What does?
I couldn't cry.

The tears had stopped, my eyes had dried. My hands had stopped shaking, I had stopped trying to shake Will's hand as if it might wake him up. My face had cleared up of the blotchiness of someone who had bawled for three hours straight. I stood at the opposite end of the room as I watched them take Will out of the room. He had long since become cold, his body stiff.

I felt curiously numb.

I could still hear Georgina from outside, still hear her whimpers as memories of her childhood drowned her. She would no longer be upstaged by her elder brother, no longer fight to be better than what he was. And she knew it. Her cries were shrill and hysterical, even hours after Will had consumed the solution that would take his life. Mr Traynor was yet to shed a tear, his face still and pale. He sat outside the room now, pressing his head into the wall, staring at the roof blankly. Mrs Traynor had held onto her daughter as she sobbed. Tears leaked down her face, her mascara running. Mrs Traynor looked as if she had aged several years in just a few hours.

And I just sat there. Trapped in the room where Will died. Overwhelmed, unsure what to do with myself. I'm not sure why I wasn't crying - god, I had cried long enough that it seemed I would cry forever. And I felt somewhat guilty as I raised myself off of the floor and sat beside Mr Traynor who barely blinked as I moved past him.

"He's gone," Georgina croaked. "He's really gone." Mrs Traynor cradled her daughter, cooing and shushing.

"He's really gone," Mr Traynor repeated, as if trying to convince himself.

The funeral had been beautiful, filled with Will's friends, ("didn't recognise half of them," Will would have scoffed.) and family. I met his cousins who cried when they met me, hugging me for several moments.

"Thank you for looking after our little cousin," they had said with a faint American accent. "We are beyond grateful." Harvesting a small baby bump, Alicia had collapsed in a puddle of tears. Rupert was distant, holding his wife's hand but generally hiding his grief. Mr Traynor had the red head woman sitting beside him and they held each other. I knew then that Will's death had ultimately ended the Traynor's marriage. I did not cry at the funeral. My heart squeezed at the stories of a little Will who had sucked on his thumb until he was six and who when he brought his first girlfriend home, had stuttered so much that they had believed her name was 'Nananatalie' for the first hour of the visit. They reminisced on how successful Will had been as a businessman.

"He changed the company," a man in a suit who I didn't recognise told us. "We were never the same when he left." And they spoke of all the adventures Will went on, on the times he'd suggested walking on hot stones or jumping off a cliff or sky diving. Nobody mentioned the accident or on Will after the accident. Nobody knew.

"Lou, would you like to speak?" Mr Traynor offered. I practically crawled to the microphone and stared at all the people at his funeral. Hundreds. Without a doubt, hundreds of people. The violinist who had sent us the tickets to the concert sat behind a music stand, hired as the entertainment with a tear in his eye. Will had made an effect on hundreds of people and yet I had seen perhaps five in the six months I had been with him.

"Will was," I began, a lump rising in my throat. "A... wonderful man." I swallowed, stage fright consuming me. I wanted to yell at everybody here, the people who had abandoned him in his new life. 'Where were you when he needed a friend?!' I wanted to scream. I remembered the days of Will staring out the window lifelessly, when I had felt such sadness radiating off him that I had been glum the rest of the day.

"I only knew him after the accident, only had a brief opportunity to be with him... But in those six short months, I-I... I fell in love with him." People looked shocked or proud, some disgusted and some looked at me like I was dirt. I didn't care. The Traynor's looked at me knowingly - I hadn't been as secretive as I'd assumed.

"He was a man with an answer to everything, someone who insisted that I live my life to its fullest. He was somebody who lived such a richly filled life. I can still hear him telling me about the time he'd climbed up a mountain or gone swimming with sharks. I once asked him if he thought that living a less exciting life before his accident... would have been preferable. So he had nothing to miss." I smiled to myself now.

"He'd looked at me like I was the stupidest thing in the world and said he'd never regret his life." I had rehearsed this speech a hundred times until the words had sounded like rubber on my tongue and yet as I faced the people who had known him for all of his life and before the accident, I felt very out of place up there.

"Will was someone I felt I could share anything with without judgement, someone I found a friend in and someone I will hold dearly to me until the day I die. It... kills me," I whispered the last words. "That I won't be able to share the rest of my life with him."

Weeks passed. Georgina returned to Australia, Mrs Traynor moved out of the Granta House without a word and I had moved out of the annexe as quickly as I could.

"You don't have to leave," Mr Traynor had told me with a sad smile. "W-Wi- he would have wanted you here." I had shaken my head, thanked him and tried not to look into Will's room, sitting in boxes. I had helped pack, making it through without a single tear. Mrs Traynor was not so lucky, clutching his jumper to her chest and falling to the ground in tears.

"A mother should not bury her child," she had cried out. I had held her. What else could I do? She let me keep the jumper that smelled so richly of him that I felt if I closed my eyes, I could touch him. She also handed me a photo that Will had had printed off and made me replace the photo of Alicia and him. It sat on the shelf in a silver frame I had fixed- it was us. The night of the concert in the annexe with Nathan taking the photo and when that was done, I recalled, turning the camera around to take a selfie.

I sat in my room now with my new blinds, Tom's pen marks still on the ends and the sheet smelling of a child. I clutched the photo frame to my chest and was forever grateful for at least one reminder of the best six months of my life. Somebody checked on me every half hour - Mum, Dad, Treena, even Granddad came to give me a hug. They were worried. Since the day I'd watched Will's body be wheeled away, I had not cried. Not so much as a tear. I was numb. At dinner time, there was gentle conversation every night, still unsure what was suitable for me at the moment. I told them I was fine, good in fact but they looked at me wearily as I poked at my meal.

"So Lou," Dad had said one night. "Do you think it's time to start looking for a new job?" Mum had hissed at him, practically running to my side to rest a hand on my shoulder.

"Bernard, Louisa is having a difficult time right now. Please be kinder." But I shook my head with a sad smile and nodded.

"Yes Dad," I hummed. "Perhaps I should." Katrina was less subtle with her efforts to see how far I would go until I cracked.

"Do you miss him?"

"Everyday."

"Do you feel guilty? I mean you were in _love_ with him."

"Treena!" my Mum would interrupt angrily. I just smiled and shook my head. What else could I do?

It was, in the end, Will that broke me. I received a letter in the mail with a cheque, an official letter of Will's will and a letter from Will.

I sat in the living room, Granddad asleep on his chair and my parents talking in the kitchen. Treena was flicking through channels while Tom played with lego.

 _"Clark,_

 _It will have been a few weeks now. I was unsure how to sum up everything I wanted to say to you and to say it in person would have been a bloody mess with your overreacting. I hope you live, Clark. Really live. Go to Paris, go to Australia, go to goddamn London for the week. I hope you see everything. I have left enough money for you to live comfortably until you finish your degree. Go get one, Clark. Find a passion and love it with everything you have. Don't let it slip under your nose._

 _I truly hope you find somebody who has as heavy of an impact on your life as you had on mine. Don't get sappy now, move on but maybe think of me when you go on your adventures, just once or twice. I love you Clark._

 _\- Will."_

I cried then, kissing the paper. I sobbed, choking on my tears. Little Thomas turned and ran to me, starting too cry too.

"Aunty Lou Lou!" he cried out.

"Lou, what's wrong? Louisa?" Treena called out over my tears, shaking my arm.

"He loved me," I whimper as Treena wraps me up, Thomas sitting on our laps and trying to wipe at my tears. "He really loved me."


End file.
